


Saving Hatsetsu

by Fangirlshrewt97



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Hatsetsu, Introspection, M/M, No Dialogue, Oaths & Vows, POV Katsuki Yuuri, exploration of yuuri's motivations?, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 18:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9838250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlshrewt97/pseuds/Fangirlshrewt97
Summary: He was scared [Hatsetsu] would disappear before his eyes so Yuuri made a vow to himself, he would do whatever was necessary to make sure that didn’t happen.(aka, the one where Yuuri makes two vows to himself and the story is about how he fulfills them).





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dearest Reader,  
> I had initially planned a very different story but I go where the story takes me, and this is where it ended up.  
> As always, characters belong to Kubo-sensei, and all mistakes are mine.  
> If you like this, please let me know through kudos and comments!  
> Enjoy!

Yuuri had always felt a need to be perfect at everything, to be at the top of his class, to be the best student to Minako-sensei, to be a good son and brother and friend, to be an ice skater worthy of representing Hatsetsu, and later Japan. Since he was young, he saw how hard his family worked, and barely managed to stay afloat. He watched as the town once known for hot springs became more forgotten as tourists went to other closer places with bigger hot springs. Watched as one by one the town lost its hot springs until his family’s was the last one standing. 

Tourists stopped coming by, there wasn’t much in Hatsetsu compared to other nearby places, which were bigger and more famous for tourism. With every month, and then year, there were less visitors to the inn that weren’t locals, and more and more of the town’s younger population kept leaving for bigger cities. 

He had always loved Hatsetsu, because yes it was no Fukuoka or certainly no Tokyo, but it was home. The soft seagull cries, the temperate weather, the beautiful scenery regardless of the season. He was scared it would disappear before his eyes so Yuuri made a vow to himself, he would do whatever was necessary to make sure that didn’t happen. Sure that was a big promise for a five-year-old who had just said goodbye to one of his friends because their family was moving to another place because of a better job offer. But it was one that guided Yuuri as he grew older, the one steady vow he kept as he studied, and danced, and especially when he skated. 

When Yuuri was seven, he first entered competitive dancing, Minako-sense behind him. He came in third place, despite older competition with more experience, because he had raw talent larger than any the world-famous ballet instructor had seen. She made him spend every minute not at school or doing work at her studio, bending him this way and that, shaping him into her perfect dancer. He felt each muscle tear and break before rebuilding better, some nights barely able to sleep because his feet were throbbing so much he could not simply ignore them and when every step felt like stepping on shattered glass. Where his classmates were going to each other’s homes for sleepovers and playdates, he spent with Minako-sensei, her studio becoming his second home. 

Despite the pain, he pushed himself further, one night almost breaking his ankle but managing to brace himself enough for it to be just torn. Minako-sensei had yelled so much at him, but he felt her concern underneath it all, making him feel guilty for worrying her. The next year, when he was eight, he won the dancing competition, qualifying him for nationals. Minako-sensei asked him if he wanted to try other forms of dance, telling him that his potential as a dancer was not limited to ballet. Yuuri saw it as a chance to reach ever more people and eagerly agreed. The next couple years, besides training for ballet four days a week, Yuuri learned various ballroom styles, working with Katagiri Kaede, a nine-year-old who had also been training under Minako-sensei in her regular classes. Because Yuuri had had so much personal training, he had outgrown her regular classes and learnt in private. 

In school, he was soft-spoken, not interacting with most of his classmates because he did not have the easy familiarity they all shared. But it allowed him to focus on his studies, which came naturally to him, especially numbers. Yuuri chalked it up to his father who taught him from young how to work the books. Katsuki Toshiya would sit his son down as he worked over the week’s expenses, explaining all the separate transactions. In the year-end examinations that happened as he grew older, he always scored in the top three, much to the envy of his classmates. They knew of Katsuki as a solitary figure, his only friends being Nishigori Takeshi and Shiratori Yuuko, from a year above them. When they approached him, he was so shy and awkward, it was just better to leave him be. 

Yuuri discovered the ice during that month when he sat on his sprained ankle, visiting his friend Yuuko as she practiced in the rink. Watching her dance on the ice was mesmerizing, Yuuko-chan looked beautiful but the ice itself lent a grace to her, Yuuri felt an almost irresistible pull to it. So when he was finally relieved of the brace, he asked Yuuko to teach him how to dance like her. Because he had skated before but never considered ice skating until he watched Yuuko spin and jump like she was flying. 

Learning how to skate, Yuuri felt a little bad because he felt like he was betraying Minako-sensei and all her hard work. Yet, he couldn’t feel too bad because the ice was so much more than he had imagined. Being on the ice, it felt like the rest of the world disappeared, much like when he danced, yet there were no rules on the ice. It gave him as much as he it, allowed him to fly and spin and dance with a freedom he could never find on normal ground. 

He watched Yuuko fawn over international competitive skaters, repeated the videos of one Viktor Nikiforov in particular, noticed how the boy, despite not being much older than Yuuri was in the world spotlight, bringing pride to his country through his skating. He made a second vow as he played those videos on repeat, part of his first vow, but a little more selfish. He vowed that he would skate on the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov one day, because if he was sharing the ice with such a skater, it meant Yuuri was in the world’s spotlight too, and more importantly it would also bring Hatsetsu to the world. 

He asked Minako-sensei if she would hate him for switching to skating. He should have known better, he thought in hindsight as he rubbed the top of his head where he had a small bump from where he had been knocked by his teacher. Learning from her for so many years, he had become a pseudo-son to her, and despite her disappointment of him not following in her footsteps in the dance world, she appointed herself his choreographer. Ice skating was a lot like dancing, changing some moves here and shifting hand positions there. Under her tutelage, Yuuri won his first Nationals at age 16, a year after he started skating. All those years of dancing helped him close the gap between himself and others who had been competing for longer. He qualified for the Junior Four Continents Championship, a rush of pride filling him as he thought of how he was a step closer to fulfilling his vows. 

He failed miserably during his first 4CC. Compared to the other skaters there, he was so far behind, and even despite his impressive step sequences and stamina, he just placed fifth. He still qualified for the next Junior Grand Prix, advancing through the different qualifiers with a newfound determination. He was 18 when he won gold at the JGPF, disbelief and relief coursing in equal amounts through him. 

He returned to a nation that declared him an asset, someone who Japan was proud to have them representing them. It was then that he felt the pressure and anxieties that had always been at the sidelines start to close in on him. He graduated at the top of his class, getting offers to some of the best universities in Japan. Minako-sensei sat him down after graduation, explaining to him that he had a choice. He could pursue college now, he had all the doors open to him, but his skating would suffer, or he could just skate, and go to college after. 

Neither option looked appealing, but it was not long after that a third option appeared out of the most unexpected place. Celestino Cialdini, a professional ice skating coach from Detroit had had a skater competing in the JGPF, and he had seen Yuuri skate, seen potential in him and wanted to train him. Yuuri knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one of those he would always wonder about if he did not take it. So he explained his dilemma, about how he would love to skate under Cialdini but his family couldn’t afford to send him to the US just to skate. Cialdini heard him out, asked Yuuri to give him a couple days and returned after said two days. He told Yuuri he had spoken to the college he was affiliated with and had gotten them to approve for a full scholarship for Yuuri if he could provide them proper qualifications. With Yuuri’s constant high grades, it proved no issue, and before he could process, he was packing his life to move to the US for college and for the foreseeable future. 

Two nights before he left, he stood at the top of the cliff that overlooked Hatsetsu, at the footsteps of the ninja castle. He took in the town he loved so much that it hurt some days, the town that had inspired him and made him strive to show the world his roots. This sleepy town with its sleepy residents, where the biggest things to happen was Hamada-san losing his walking cane and walking into a tree because some kids had stolen his glasses. It made his heart ache to see how small it seemed compared to some of the other places he had been and where was going to live for the next few years. 

At the airport in Fukuoka, he took a deep breath as he stood at the security gate, looking back to see him family. His parents and Mari were there, his mother with tears as she waved goodbye to her baby boy. Minako-sensei was also trying to hold it together as she held onto his shoulders, lecturing him to not stop practicing dancing. Just because you are going to be training for skating does not mean you can stop dancing Yuuri, if I hear that you have forgotten how to plie, I will come to the US and kick your behind, you hear? Vicchan, the poodle who had been his faithful companion for the last few years yipped, squirming in Mari’s arms as he sought to come to him. Leaving him behind was perhaps the hardest, because he could talk to his parents and Minako-sensei and Mari, but what was he going to do without Vicchan?

For the five years he was in Detroit, he repeated his two vows like mantras each night before going to bed. He worked hard in college, not letting the stress from skating affect his studying. He succumbed to the pressure and anxiety more often than he liked. Where in Japan he had had his family and friends and Vicchan for support, here he was alone. There was no delicious Katsudon, so empty studio or even a small warm body to cuddle when the ugly monsters in his head reared their head. Yuuri kept most of those monsters to himself, after all, his family was an ocean away, what could they do for him beside worry?

When he finally reached the Senior Grand Prix Finals, skating next to Viktor for the first time, so close to fulfilling his vows, he got a phone call. Hearing that Vicchan had died, after not having seen his dog for five years was the last draw for the Japanese skater. Two nights ago his performance had been unfocused and unbalanced, making too many mistakes for his skill level because the ugly monsters would not shut up. 

He went out to the ice because Celestino pushed his body but his mind was stuck in Japan, where his faithful companion was lying in the vet’s office waiting to be buried. The heartache of that loss, the pressure he had put on himself to justify his title as Japan’s ace, the nerves of meeting his long-time idol. It proved to be too much, with him popping every jump and barely sticking to the choreography during his step sequence, he finished dead last. He got yelled at by the current Junior GP Champion, and to add insult to injury, Viktor did not even recognize him as a fellow competitor. 

Returning to the US, Yuuri felt like he was at the bottom of the barrel, nothing helping him. Not Minako-sensei’s late night calls, not dear Phichit’s attempts to make him socialize, not Celestino’s poor attempts at comfort. He withdrew into himself, unable to even think of his vows without feeling ashamed. He struggled through his last semester at college, graduating with a diploma but feeling no satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. 

The entire flight back to Japan, all that Yuuri could think of was shame, he had made good on his vow of representing Hatsetsu and Japan but done so in the worst way possible. How was he supposed to be ok with the failure he had been at the Grand Prix? How could he have thought that he was ever going to do something as amazing as ‘save’ his town? He was a nobody, with few friends to speak of and mediocre talent to speak off. His wins were flukes, happenstances, right place at the right time incidents. 

He went back to the same cliff he had been stood in five years ago, when he had first left Japan, after visiting Vicchan. He sat down and cried, tears spilling without his permission as his vision blurred and breathing became hard. Mari found him there several hours later, curled up into as tight a ball as he could, trying to become small enough to just disappear into thin air. His sister coaxed him into bed, telling him he wasn’t a failure and that Hatsetsu was proud, that he had done her proud. Her words fell on deaf ears though, drowned out by the monsters that had moved permanently into her little brother’s head. She stayed with him until he finally drifted off to sleep, tears still leaking. 

When Viktor showed up, Yuuri thought it was all a hallucination. When Yurio joined him after, he believed his words, believed his mediocrity and his weight made him a lost cause. But having Viktor here meant Yuuri had a second chance to fulfill his vows, and if what his sister and Celestino had said to him as he left the US were true, Yuuri was not going down without a fight. Over the course of those few months, he learned under Viktor, and unconciously surrendered the heart that had belonged to Viktor long before then. 

In China he learned that Viktor had feeling for him as well and felt like for the first time, his vows might actually come true. In Russia, hearning Makkachin’s condition made Vicchan flash before his eyes, and though it killed him, he made VIktor return to Japan. He left the cold country, mind made up that he was going to accomplish his first vow that year, but to dance in the same ice as Viktor, well that required the Russian to return to the ice.

In Barcelona, he gave Viktor a ring, truly meant as a lucky charm, because Yuuri realized the true charm was Viktor himself. Of course the man with the flair for the dramatic announced it as their engagement ring. He humored the man for a couple days, but after a botched Short PRogram that made him question himself again, he set Viktor straight. Told him that he was grateful for the few months that he had had the privilege of spending with him, months he would never forget. But it was time for the living legend to return to the ice. 

In the end, Yuuri ended silver, losing by a tiny margin to the his younger namesake, but his monsters did not swallow him whole. Rather Viktor’s love as well as the support of his family and his recently much expanded friends circle was enough to hold them at bay.

The next year, Yuuri finally fulfilled both his vows properly, he won gold at the GPF, breaking another record and bringing Hatsetsu into the spotlight. He came back to a hometown that was teeming with tourists and visitors from around Japan and the world, wanting to rediscover this little hidden gem in the middle of nowhere. He fulfilled his second vow when he and Viktor danced together during their two exhibition dances, but more importantly during their reception dance at Ice Castle Hatsetsu. His marriage brought a lot of press, further propelling his town into the papers. 

Yuuri found himself standing at the cliff at the foot of the ninja castle’s steps a third time a few days before leaving for Russia, where he and his husband had made a home for themselves. Viktor found him sitting at the edge, feet bouncing against the cliff’s face. He invited him to sit beside him. He told his husband about his vows, starting small and shy as he explained his reasonings, afraid of being laughed at. But he ended with his head held high, proud for the first time at himself, his monsters quiet as he realized he had accomplished his vows. He had been true to them. 

Viktor just smiled and pulled him close, kissing him softly before embracing him. “Oh Yuuri, there is nothing in this world you cannot do my love, not if you really set your mind to it. Hatsetsu has always been proud of you Yuuri, but you are right, it would have disappeared in a few years if not for you. So I promise you not only is Hatsetsu proud of you, it is indebted to you.” And not letting his husband protest his claims, he kissed him again, falling all over in love with the incredible man in his arms who had through hard work and persistence accomplished his two vows. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to chat with me, come visit me at fangirlshrewt97.tumblr.com  
> If you liked my writing, feel free to check out my other works!


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